The central government has decided to retain the civil services aptitude test and set the qualifying limit at minimum 35 per cent.
Former Union Minister and the Congress candidate for the Mayiladuthurai Lok Sabha seat, Mani Shankar Aiyar strongly believes that the good work done by him as an MP for the constituency over the past two decades will fetch him a comfortable victory in the upcoming polls.
'We could quibble with each other whether there were 25 terrorists killed or 250 killed.' 'The message is more that India undertook such an aerial attack and this attack has actually changed the paradigm.' 'The change in paradigm is that India has shown by the surgical strike in 2016 and the aerial strike of 2019 that we will not just sit back and tolerate terrorism which killed so many of our people.' 'We will hit back and by hitting back we will raise the costs of such activities.'
The MEA asserted that Arunachal Pradesh was territorially intergal and inalienable to India.
The United States has said it is focused on moving forward its relationship with India and asserted that the legal procedure against diplomat Devyani Khobragade is separate from the diplomatic process.
'I am in mortal danger not personally, but politically,' Mani Shankar Aiyar tells Anjali Puri.
'The Communist rule in Tripura was exceptional while it lasted for a quarter century in giving good governance.' 'The chief minister himself was the paragon of virtues in his dedication in public life.' 'But all that still didn't add up when the BJP's dream merchants came up with their famous 'development agenda'.' 'One thing that emerges indisputably in the Tripura election results is that needs and aspirations more or less narrow down to one little word -- jobs,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Tuesday said his ministry is contemplating a plan to have people from industry on-board to facilitate on issues relating to economic diplomacy.
'Dr Khobragade is now a Counsellor without any specific work responsibility at the PMI. There is not going to be any work for her at the mission at least for now. This is an interim measure to help her so she can get diplomatic immunity and get over this situation.'
'The first 55 years of Natwar Singh's life give a fascinating narrative of our diplomacy,' says Ambassador B S Prakash after reading One Life is Not Enough.
With Donald Trump the appeal has to be to his business instincts in which his personal interests seem to play a significant role, says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
'I say Modi was India's last chance.' 'Because the kind of work this government has done -- I'm talking about physical delivery -- is fantastic, like no time in our history.'
Why not agree that, yes, India is a Hindu country though not all Indians are Hindus? And that for those who are not, our Constitution is sturdily secular and always will be, says Karti Sandilya.
'Given his stint in Beijing, as India's longest serving ambassador there and that too through some challenging and interesting times, Jaishankar ought to have been appointed as foreign secretary in 2013 itself,' says Sanjaya Baru.
Former RA&W chief A S Dulat, who served as Atalji's adviser on Kashmir, gives us an insider's glimpse of a prime minister he has hailed as the 'greatest after Nehru'.
'Today you have 30 to 40 per cent of bureaucrats who are not parrots of the government, but what happens if you change the system?' 'If implemented, this can disrupt the system, which will have more adverse consequences than demonetisation.'
'As China rises and India grows to reclaim their earlier positions on the world stage as two of the largest economies and most important countries, there will indeed be some contention between these two powers.' 'There will also be plenty of space and room for cooperation amongst the two of us.' 'As our economic size increases to match the fact that we are the two most populous nations on earth, it will be all the more important for us to keep the interests of our peoples as well as those of the rest of the world in mind.' 'We shall have to grow together rather than as separate and disparate entities,' points out Ambassador Gautam Bambawale -- who served as India's ambassador to China -- in the 7th annual lecture of the Indian Association of Foreign Affairs Correspondents on March 1, 2019.
In a strong retaliation, India on Tuesday initiated a slew of steps to strip US diplomats and their families of privileges including withdrawing all airport passes and stopping import clearances for the US embassy, terming as "barbaric" the arrest and strip searching of India's Deputy Consul General in New York Devyani Khobragade.
Women candidates have bagged the three top slots in the prestigious Civil Services examination to select Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service officers among others.
Medhavi Kirti, the granddaughter of late veteran Congress leader Babu Jagjiwan Ram, has been campaigning against her aunt Meira Kumar, Lok Sabha Speaker and Congress candidate from Sasaram Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.
'Till the time the MSM and Modi don't trust one another, expect more Nirmala Sitharamans springing out from nowhere,' says Sudhir Bisht.
Today as one sees the Owaisi brothers of Hyderabad seeking to lay claim as the custodian of the Muslim vote and the upholders of the community's interests, it is Shahabuddin who springs to mind for having been there, done that, says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Officers of the three premier services -- Indian Administrative Services, Indian Police Service and Indian Foreign Service -- will now spend a minimum of two years at each posting and any exception in the form of transfers or new appointments will only be done upon the recommendation of a civil services board, according to new rules aimed at checking political interference.
'Oommen Chandy may well prove to be the Teflon chief minister whose reputation cannot be tarnished,' predicts Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
S Jaishankar turned out to be a chip of the old block and that too, in modern parlance, a fully loaded chip. The father laid down the precepts of Indian strategy and diplomacy and the son put them into practice. T P Sreenivasan on India's new foreign secretary.
The dent on India-US relations caused by L'affaire Devyani will not remain for long as those will be determined by strategic and economic considerations, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
From banking to teaching, the list covers all.
With senior diplomat Devyani Khobragade's strip search triggering a major row between India and the United States, the invasive post-arrest procedure is again in the limelight over a year after America's top court ruled in its favour.
Diplomats agree that amid stormy relations with China and Pakistan, Modi has posted impressive foreign policy successes, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Sujatha Singh is the third senior official to have been dismissed by NDA.
Sujatha Singh stands for the right values and quite simply, she's a "good person" who understands complex economic issues thoroughly, say her friends.
The United States has agreed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the arrest of an Indian diplomat has caused hiccups in bilateral ties, but said it is now focused on getting the relationship back on really strong footing.
We can learn much from China with regards to making civil service recruitment more efficient, says former diplomat Kishan S Rana.
The two governments have already set a target of increasing bilateral trade in goods and services to $500 billion.
At least a dozen officers from Gujarat are handling key assignments in various important central positions
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Modi government must push reforms at a fast pace to restore growth.
"As Civil Aviation minister, I apologise to all those affected (by these incidents)," Ashok Gajapathi Raju told a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday evening, in an attempt to end the controversy.
'Those who follow the workings of the establishment believe that Indian diplomacy has managed more by the individual flair and brilliance of a few individuals than its systemic strength or organisational excellence.'
'Under Narendra Modi's leadership, we will be able to regain our rightful place in the community of nations,' veteran diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri, who joined the BJP on January 2, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
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